Schools: Protective Clothing

(asked on 19th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure the adequacy of supply of personal protective equipment for (a) staff and (b) pupils in schools.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 2nd June 2020

On 14 May 2020, the Department published new guidance on safe working in schools and nurseries, which outlines the specific circumstances in which personal protective equipment (PPE) is required. The guidance is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safe-working-in-education-childcare-and-childrens-social-care/safe-working-in-education-childcare-and-childrens-social-care-settings-including-the-use-of-personal-protective-equipment-ppe.

The Department has worked closely with Public Health England (PHE) and stakeholders to devise a hierarchy of controls for all education settings which, when implemented, will create an inherently safer system where the risk of transmission of the infection is substantially reduced. These include protective measures such as ensuring that anyone with symptoms does not attend their schools or nursery, promoting high standards of hand and respiratory hygiene, regular cleaning of touched surfaces, minimising contact and mixing and, where needed, use of PPE as outlined in our published guidance.

As the guidance details, PPE is only needed in a very small number of cases. In these specific circumstances, schools and nurseries should use their local supply chains to obtain PPE wherever possible.

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